Former walk-on Jenson Stoshak looks to justify scholarship

Fifteen receptions in 2012 earned Stoshak a scholarship, but now the real work begins.

September 3, 2013|By Dieter Kurtenbach, Sun Sentinel

BOCA RATON — Wide receiver Jenson Stoshak walked onto the FAU football team last year because he wanted to prove that he play at college football's highest level. He did just that, working his way into the Owls' starting lineup and ultimately earning a full scholarship.

There were times when Stoshak didn't think it that scholarship would come — low points in a season that cost him $8,000 to play — but now, as a scholarship sophomore, Stoshak is finding that proving himself again is going to be even more difficult than anything he faced as a freshman walk-on.

Stoshak is off to a good start — he caught two passes for 18 yards in FAU's season opener against Miami last Friday. But being a decent second option isn't what the FAU coaches want.

"The thing Jenson has to deal with now is different expectations," FAU wide receivers coach Jeff Sims said. "When you have no expectations, it's pretty easy to exceed expectations… Jenson is a tough kid to coach because he's always gotten good grades. He's always given good effort. He's always been a good player. But the reality is that Jenson could be a great student, a great person, a great player.

"Now, we know what his ability is. We to push him to be great and we're not going to be happy until Jenson is a guy who has done some fantastic things for our team."

It might seem like Stoshak is being singled out by the FAU staff, and in a way, he is. That's because the receiver's second year has provided FAU coaches a perfect case study in showing the Owls what they can do if they buy into the team's program.

One of the ways the Owls coaches push the team is that they never compliment anything they see on the field or on tape as "good."

No, "good" is banned in the FAU football offices. Something is either "correct" or "great". To be good is mediocre, and in FAU's new league, Conference USA, mediocrity doesn't win games.

Stoshak, a kid who came to FAU with no ego and a lot to prove, exceeded expectations last season. And as FAU coaching staff tries to build a program with a less-than-stable foundation and a roster of not-ready-for-primetime players, the more they can get their players to emulate Stoshak, the better.

But not all the pressure on Stoshak is coming from FAU coaches. Stoshak said that he nearly passed out at the team's end-of-the-year banquet when FAU coach Carl Pelini announced he'd been awarded a scholarship, but that excitement was quickly replaced by anxiety and a self-inflicted pressure to improve.

The 6-foot-1 receiver knew that coaches were going to expect more out of him in 2013, so he spent the last nine months working on improving his speed, knowing that if he didn't show an extra gear, I'd be impossible for him to keep his playing time.

"I was one of the strongest freshman coming onto the team already," Stoshak said. "I knew that I knew more than most receivers, and I got some game experience last year and that really helped me really focus more on speed."

The work has paid off. Stoshak is firmly part of Sims' receiver rotation, both on the outside (where he saw playing time last year) and in the slot.

For Sims, seeing Stoshak go from walk-on to an every-down kind of player is especially rewarding, both as his position coach and as the team's recruiting coordinator.

Sims has a pamphlet in his office for the Burlsworth Trophy — the Heisman Trophy for players who started their career as walk-ons. Sims envisions the day where he'll have the actual trophy, not a pamphlet in his office, to help convince the overlooked players of Florida to come to FAU, and he's hoping it will be Stoshak that wins it for him.

Said Sims: "Hopefully we're going to have people who are going to be up for that kind of an award because they chose to stay home, just like Jenson."